


snack mate

by tragicpasta (choomchoom)



Category: All New X-Men (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: F/F, Feelings, Gen, Grocery Shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-27 23:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18200630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choomchoom/pseuds/tragicpasta
Summary: Illyana and Scott, both of whom are terrible at small talk, are sent to the grocery store. Inevitably, this leads to Big Talk. Takes place around All-New X-Men #26.





	snack mate

**Author's Note:**

> For the March 2019 Xplain Discord Fanwork Challenge Prompt Lucky Pairs!

“Come grocery shopping with me?” Illyana asked without preamble, the second Kitty opened her door.

Kitty pursed her lips, and Illyana could tell that she wanted to say yes. And that all her stupid overdeveloped sense of responsibility, for some reason, wouldn’t let her. “Why don’t you take Scott?” she asked.

“Scott left.”

Kitty rolled her eyes practically into outer space. “The other Scott.”

“ _That_ Scott? I can think of hundreds of reasons not to.”

“Please?” Kitty said, and that wouldn’t have changed anything, except that she followed it up with “As a favor to me?”

Illyana glowered.

“I want to have a conversation with Jean and I don’t want him to be in telepathy range,” Kitty explained. The door to her room was all the way open as they talked, but Kitty clung to the frame rather than let Illyana in. She had shown up uninvited, after all.

Illyana glowered more, but time and resurrection hadn’t, apparently, availed her of her greatest weakness: an earnest request from Kitty Pryde.

“Thank you!” Kitty called down the hall as Illyana stalked toward Scott’s room. Illyana ignored her.

Scott wasn’t even in his dumb room. After a moment of consideration, Illyana made her way to the arena that Weapon X had used to train its victims, and Scott had mentioned wanting to turn into some kind of jerry-rigged Danger Room.

And there he was, in costume, moving a piece of equipment into place and then stepping back to stare at it. Illyana was bored already.

“Cyclops,” she said. Scott jerked in surprise and turned toward her. “We’ve been instructed to go grocery shopping.”

“By who?” he asked. “I run this place.”

“Do you even know who usually does the grocery shopping?”

“Uh.” The lower half of his face was slack. “You?”

Illyana rolled her eyes. It was Emma, but she preferred to let him wonder. Emma had asked her to go today because she would be faster, and Illyana had agreed because she thought it would be a fantastic excuse to spend time with Kitty. Considering that Kitty had declined, and that Illyana _still hadn’t left yet_ , the day was already a miserable failure on all counts.

Scott gave the arena one last glance and then walked toward her. As soon as he was close enough, Illyana ported them across the continent.

“Won’t people notice us?” Scott asked as they emerged in the parking lot of a Wegmans.

“Not if I don’t want them to,” Illyana said.

Scott looked at her, then down at the leather jacket and ripped jeans he was now wearing. “Was this really necessary?” he asked.

“Yes,” Illyana said, and walked into the store.

Scott caught up with her as she was reading through the list Emma had given her. “Does that say ‘space dust’?” she asked, showing Scott the list. It definitely did; Emma’s handwriting was impeccable. But like. Who had put _space dust_ on their grocery list and how did they expect her to find it in a Wegmans? Wegmans was great, according to Emma, but Illyana suspected that even the best grocery stores had their limits.

Scott managed to make the moment even weirder by _chuckling_. Illyana…couldn’t think of the last time she had heard him do that. “That does indeed say space dust. I’m guessing Bobby’s request.”

“That’s a real thing?”

“Was, anyway.”

“This says ‘snack mate.’ Does that mean someone’s lonely and wants a friend?”

“Sprayable cheese,” Scott said. Illyana turned to stare at him, but he was already walking ahead of her toward the carts.

He grabbed one from the stack, and Illyana commandeered it, pulling it from its front toward the produce section. Scott tried to turn it, but she kept her grip.

“We should get dry goods first, some produce needs to stay chilled,” he said.

Oh for the love of – “Produce is right here, and we’ll be done soon enough anyway.”

“It’ll take the same amount of time if we start over there.”

“But we’re already right here –”

“Illya-”

Illyana let go of the cart abruptly, making Scott stumble back a little. To any onlookers, it would have looked like a graceful step, but both of them were combat-trained enough to notice. Scott glowered at Illyana’s smirk.

“What is up with you today? Why kidnap me grocery shopping if you’re just going to antagonize me?”

“You know what I’m like.”

“I do,” said Scott, and this time, Illyana didn’t object when he started pushing the cart toward the dry goods. “But really – you seem angry.”

“I’m always angry.”

“You know what I mean.”

Illyana followed him in silence as he paused the cart in front of the rice section. He looked down at the list, which just said rice, and frowned before looking back up at the dozen varieties of rice in front of him.

Illyana grabbed one at random, tossing it into the cart, and grabbing the front end of the cart to start it moving down the aisle. “I don’t like having Pryde around,” she said, _just_ to distract him from going back and wasting one more second puzzling over rice. Also, because he would have found out somehow.

She mentally congratulated herself for how she’d phrased that; _Pryde_ , not Kitty, not Katya. Nice and impersonal.

“Why not? I thought you two were friends,” Scott said, stopping again in front of a wall of salad dressings.

“We’re not talking about this,” Illyana said, picking out the one she’d seen Kitty using last week and putting it in the cart.

Scott’s sunglasses didn’t allow for a lot, expression-wise, but she could hear his dull stare in his voice. “You brought it up.”

“What’s next on the list?” Illyana asked.

“Cereal. Did something happen?”

“What kind of cereal?”

“Illyana, I’m trying to help, here.”

“Don’t you have enough of your own problems to deal with?”

“I sure do. But I’m the leader of this team, which means your problems become my problems if they’re going to affect the team’s function.”

“I don’t like having her around. That’s all.”

“Did she do something?”

“No.” They had stopped at the top of an aisle. Scott was looking intently at her, and Illyana stared back.

“Did you two ever date?” Scott asked.

Illyana pivoted and started to walk away. The grocery cart wheels screeched in protest as Scott rushed to follow her. “Wait, I’m right? That’s what this is about?”

Illyana whirled on him. “I didn’t even answer your question.”

“You didn’t have to. You like her.”

Illyana turned and stalked down a random aisle so that Scott wouldn’t see her cheeks flare red. She briefly considered teleporting back to base and leaving him here, but decided to wait until he said one more annoying thing.

Hey, pickles. Those were on the list. She grabbed a jar and brought them over to the cart.

“It’s fine,” she said, keeping her gaze on the pickles as she placed them into the cart. “I’ll get over it.” It wasn’t like Kitty could actually leave – not with all the nonsense with the kids going on.

“You don’t have to get over it,” Scott said. “Whatever it is, or was, or could turn into…it – _she_ is something to fight for. We all need those.”

“You’re certainly one to be giving romantic advice.”

He chuckled again. _Again_. In how many minutes? What a bizarre day. “Maybe so.”

Peanut butter, hot sauce, bread, meats, and finally back to produce, all in blissful silence.

After a few minutes, the silence got boring. “I heard you talked to Jean.”

“I did.”

“You want me to hold on to…whatever it is, with Kitty,” Illyana said, tossing a bag of apples into the cart. “Here’s some advice for you: let go of her.”

“What? What does that even –”

“Stop conflating her with your Jean.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“But it’s not impossible,” Illyana said, turning to face him. She wished she could bring her sword out, it always gave her words more gravitas. “Kitty did it. With the children. With me. Even Bobby.”

“What’s so special about Bobby?”

Illyana hoped that her scathing look was enough, that she didn’t have to _say it_.

“Ohhhhh huh. Wait, _you_ knew they were dating?”

“It was important intelligence.”

“Sure.”

They passed a hot food bar as they made their way toward the registers, and Illyana looked into one of the heated tins. She couldn’t tell what was in it, but the dough wrappers reminded her of pirozhki, and since they were already out…

“Have you ever had pirozhki?”

“I’ve travelled.”

“That’s not a yes.”

Scott’s sullen silence was answer enough.

They paid, and Illyana dropped off the bags of groceries in Limbo before porting them to Moscow. At the first street cart they found, they ordered enough pirozhki for themselves, Kitty, and the remaining brats, and then brought it all back to the school.

“Wow,” Scott said, apropos of nothing, standing outside the entrance to the school holding his share of the bags. “That’s the first time I’ve left the school since we set up shop here that hasn’t involved a fight.”

“You need to get out more,” Illyana said, starting toward the kitchen.

“That’s not easy advice you gave,” Scott said as they unloaded the bags. “But I’ll try if you do.”

Illyana leveled a glare at him. He nodded, accepting that as an answer. Illyana took two pirozhki out of the bag, pushed the rest toward him to distribute, and started toward Kitty’s quarters.

Illyana heard Kitty’s voice inside, so she waited a moment, then she heard Peter’s instead of Jean’s in reply, so she had no qualms about banging on the door. She heard Kitty apologize, and then the door slid open. Inside, the hologram generator was off.

“How’s your boyfriend?” Illyana asked.

“We’re not –”

“Whatever. I brought pirozhki,” Illyana said, holding up the paper-wrapped dumplings.

This time, Kitty stepped aside to let her in. “Thanks. And thanks for doing that. I talked to Jean.”

“I talked to Scott.”

“You did?”

“Nah, I’m just messing with you.” Illyana handed Kitty a pirozhki and started to unwrap the other one.

Kitty sat down on the bed, and after a moment, patted the spot next to her. Illyana took it, cocking her head as she looked at what was projected on the wall in front of them. “What’cha working on?”

“Oh, it – it’s not work. Pe – it’s a video game I got.”

“Huh.”

Kitty looked right at her, soft brown eyes under thick lashes, for what felt like the first time in years. “You wanna play?” she asked.

Illyana should leave. She should just get herself out of this situation and stay away from Kitty as much as possible. They had a big facility; avoiding her wouldn’t even be hard. It was an easy way out from all these stupid feelings.

But she couldn’t deny that however bad being around Kitty who didn’t know her anymore, Kitty who was kissing a holographic alien in her spare time, made her feel, Illyana wanted to keep sitting here next to her at least as much as she wanted to avoid the hurt that came with it.

And she’d made a pact.

“Sure,” Illyana said.

**Author's Note:**

> [snack mate](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3472/5706707784_80c9ebbe53_o.jpg) and [space dust](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e_erFDs2UWs/U8AhmvZUEmI/AAAAAAAAAcA/6gdlvRwQftE/s1600/Space+dust.jpg) are real foods


End file.
